Calling Out Buyers: Shopping Privacy & the New Etsy

Have you ever wanted to take a peek inside the shopping bag of your neighbor? Or maybe check out your boss’ choice of sleepwear? What are your kids’ teachers, your employees, or your ex really shopping for? Now, thanks to Etsy’s soon to be released “findability” feature, you can find out. And chances are good they’ll never even know you snooped. Unless, of course, you decide to post your findings to your facebook friends, your book club, or a few hundred of your closest twitter followers.

The new feature will allow members to give Etsy access to their address books, which will then match the email addresses within to Etsy accounts. Suddenly you’ll be tapped into the feedback, favorites, and “circles” of every Etsy member in your contacts list. Because the feature is “opt out”, it will be automatically enabled for all members who don’t specifically disable it, even those who haven’t purchased anything from Etsy in years. Assuming you’re willing to overlook the questionable practice of accessing the contacts in the address books of members who allow it (perhaps storing the contacts/email addresses contained therein in the process) the privacy concerns are far reaching. Etsy has revised its Privacy Policy in anticipation of the new feature’s release.

Etsy could have chosen to make the feature “opt in”, meaning that each member would need to turn it on themselves, thus insuring they were willing to share their activities on etsy with everyone they know on demand. But despite the pleas of members (see this forum post – note that Admin posts are now shown first by default and not in the order originally posted) the feature will go live for every member who doesn’t specifically opt out. According to Etsy admin Sean11, “If everyone had to opt in in order to be found, this feature would not be very effective. The result would be a poor first-time experience for most members.” Despite over 5200 posts in the thread cited above mostly asking that privacy take precedence over “first-time user experience”, the feature will apparently roll out as originally planned.

Complicating the issue are the newly released Circles & Activities Feed features. Circles allow members to add others to their group, similar to “friending” someone on Facebook, with the exception that members are added with no prior approval. Adding someone to your circle adds many of their etsy activities to your Activity Feed so that you’re notified when they add a shop or item to their favorites, create a treasury, etc. When Etsy added the Circles feature they included an opt out option which many members selected, thinking it would help keep their activities private.

After several weeks, without notice or consent, Etsy decided to make Circles and the Activity Feeds “mandatory” and every member who had opted out was unceremoniously opted back in. Most members are unaware of this development since no notice was given. This has wide implications for the trustworthiness of the opt out option of “findability” and raises questions as to how long it will be before that also becomes “mandatory” and potentially exposes the shopping habits of anyone who has ever created an Etsy account to everyone who has their email address.

So what can you do to add some privacy protection back to your Etsy account?

Currently you can opt out of “findability” at Your Account under the Privacy tab. You can make your Favorites and Feedback private. You may also want to change your email address on file in Your Account to one that is exclusive to Etsy, thus insuring that it will not appear in anyone else’s address book in the event of another policy change. And you can comment below to express your opinion of these new features.

Update February 24: Etsy “Friend Finder” is rolling out and is now live for some members. Those who have the feature will have a “Find your friends” tab in the Circle section of their profile. If you have a gmail.com, yahoo.com or aol.com email address, Find Your Friends will allow you to give Etsy access to your contact list and match the emails within it to Etsy accounts.

I just don’t understand why on earth they think this is going to boost their site. Stupid people.
I too finally asked Etsy to delete my account due to this. Not only is my seller information not safe with them, but I highly doubt my shopper info would be either.

Ah just another reason to use Artfire instead I personally quit using etsy after finding out some of their horrific business practices 9.95 a month and no commissions artfire wins hands down on every point

I closed my Tinsel Whiskers shop and requested Etsty Admin to delete it over this issue. I do not trust Etsy.

I went to Etsy to sell but found out that the site is about being social and now it is about selling my private information. I do not trust Etsy.

I opted out of circles and Etsy decided I didn’t know what I wanted and opted me back in with no way of opting out. I do not trust Etsy.

Before I closed my Tinsel Whiskers shop on Etsy, I opted out of Findability because I was concerned they would opt me back in like they did with circles. I do not trust Etsy.

My Tinsel Whiskers shop at Etsy may be closed but Etsy still has all my information for that account. I am fearful of what they will do with it and how it will negatively affect me. I do not trust Etsy.

I deleted all the items in my Etsy shop and changed my shop announcement to redirect customers to my ArtFire shop. Seeing their job posting on glassdoor.com, where it describes their industry as “information collection and delivery” was the final straw for me.

Very eloquent article thank you for getting the word out about this. I will be closing my shop there because of this and other bone head moves made be the Etsy administration. It is very sad to see such a wonderful idea that Etsy was founded on be destroyed by those in charge.

Very well written article will be sharing with my friends and family and clients. This was the last straw for me as well, I’ve not listed anything at Etsy since back in August because of the broken cart debacle and with this turn of events I asked that they close my shop and remove all information from their servers (doubt they did since I have no actual way of checking but still had to say it).

I was also very dismayed when I heard of all the recent changes that Etsy has chosen to implement. I chose rather than to comprimise my integrety and have the potential of infringing on my prior customers privacy, I closed my Etsy account. I also sent out an email to those who had either signed up for an account on Etsy to purchase from me, or those who were not showing recent activity, informing them of these changes plus some links to threads in the forums.

I also sent out an email to all of my email contact list warning them of this potentially comprimising their privacy (just in case they had ever signed up for an account on Etsy)

This is just so wrong on so many levels. Thank you for such a wonderfully clear post about this.

It is very sad to see the wonderful place that Etsy was become so unpleasant and difficult to shop on.

Wow. i think everyone is overreacting. I have been on art sites for a long time where they show ALL the activity that you do – comments, print purchases, people friending me without me having the ability to reject it, art favorites, and you don’t even have an option to opt out! And I have never had an issue with any of these sites distributing information without me knowing. Everyone is always so scared that some monster out there is going to steal their stupid credit card, that they go and delete their Etsy shop, without even giving it a chance. Sheesh. I always thought that this is what the internet IS. Information exchange. I’d rather have Etsy give around some info about what I and others like to shop for, and possibly make more sales, than ban the website forever and have to shop for crappy walmart jewelry again.

One of Etsy’s classic moves was to feature an off Etsy seller of jewelry who had the audacity to condemn Etsy jewelry makers who use coral. She not only wrongly defamed them as rapers of the coral environment but posted a petition on her off Etsy website calling for a ban on purchasing anything coral even though many corals can be ethically and environmentally sourced. She did this, in my opinion, only to promote her questionably manufactured jewelry that she sold at Target.

She didn’t have an Etsy account. She was allowed to link to her website, which Etsy sellers are forbidden to do.

Etsy allowed this woman to flagrantly attack Etsy jewelry sellers (Etsy’s customers) and they refused to apologize in any meaningful way or remove the offending article. How best to win over the trust of sellers than allow and fully support an outsider to promote her possibly sweat shop created merchandise by wrongly attacking many truly handmade artisans who conscientiously source their corals?

This debacle did not directly affect me personally but it did open my eyes to who Etsy had become and that they only serve their own best interests. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how allowing an outsider to directly attack a signifcant portion of their customer base was in the best interest of Etsy. I have my opinion and it is not pretty.

I understand that many of this Target jewelry can now be found quite cheaply at your local thrift store. I guess you can talk a great game but when it comes down to quality, the buying public spoke and voted with their dollars.

With all due respect, I think you should educate yourself on the facts.

With all due respect Laurel, not everyone wants their personal info all over the place and it’s no one elses business but their own why. I don’t want Etsy spamming my friends and family, having access to my Facebook contacts, forcing me into their stupid “circles” thing, (which was opt out until they decided to force it on everyone with no more opt out option), reading my private conversations, and so much more crap. It was supposed to be a selling venue. Now it is some sort of social disaster! And I don’t want my customers subjected to all these idiotic things that may access their personal info etc… I am in the business to sell, not socialize. If I want to socialize I can do it in thousands of other places, but Etsy was supposed to help artisans sell their creations. That was their original focus, and it was wonderful back in the beginning of Etsy. Now I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. They have given no reason to be trusted. Their track record over the last 2 years says it all. They don’t give a damn about the sellers, or buyers there. They care about going public and making money. That’s it. Thank goodness I am no longer there. I have found a much better place to sell on Artfire. A place that does not give me migraine headaches and heartburn on a daily basis.

Thank you for this!!! I once had a shop there, but my customers didnt want to have to sign up to purchase. I decided to go to Artfire, where they aren’t required to. Not having to worry about marking up my products just to cover the fees from them and paypal, is a big plus too. Also, I dont want people to see who all I am purchasing from, The sad part is that there are several there that I want to purchase from and have contacted asking to do so off the site, to invoice me by email through pay pal.
I even had one seller who after taking payment refused any communication and as the weeks went by still no contact and when I contacted customer service at etsy they told me to contact the seller!!! or do a dispute through pay pal.
I dont trust etsy either. I dont believe they are in it for the sellers to help them get sales at all. I just relaunched my shop on artfire after a bit of down time and wow the response and ease of it is sooo much better! Everyones entitled to their opinion and thank you for letting me voice mine! Have an awesome day!

I wonder even though I closed my etsy shop as a result of this debacle, will etsy still be able to share my email? I used to love to shop there and I did make some sales.
Can anyone answer this question?
Thanks!

I knew there was a reason I stopped listing on Etsy. And to think I was going to reopen my shop this weekend! I think tomorrow I’ll be DELETEING it instead and spend the weekend getting my ArtFire shop set up. Way to go Etsy! It’s no ones business what I buy unless *I* choose to make it someone business.

Something is in the water over at Etsy. The changes they are making are pulling them further from being a ‘commerce site’ to a ‘social experience.’ When Google put together a facebook like feature and opted in every gmail user, they caught heck from their user base. They quickly apologized and reversed it to opt-out by default. Etsy really should consider following suit. They floated the experiment out, they heard their clientele’s response, and now Etsy gets the chance to respond. How they respond to their customer concerns will speak louder than any explanatory post made. This is not politics, its online commerce. Etsy’s business model has been historically based on a browse and explore methodology rather than an open search model. That require attracted viewers. With so many sellers and buyers upset by the breach of privacy, we risk a drop in the overall population of browsers. This will lead to less sale for us and less final value fees for Etsy. I hope this experiment is short lived and few people are harmed from the exposure of their private decisions. I for one will be very careful that whatever I buy is something that I would stand on the steps of city hall and shout to the world, CHECK THIS OUT! Even if I don’t show it off, Etsy will for me.

Wow. I closed my Etsy shop a while ago, but still purchase from several sellers there – something I will be re-thinking! I don’t want my husband finding out what I bought him for his birthday, etc – and that’s the least harm that could come from this.

This was the last straw for me at Etsy. And made it clear to me that they were going to continue down the path of making bad decision after bad decision. I used that as the kick in the butt I needed to finally open up a shop at ArtFire and am liking that site more every day. I absolutely do not want privacy to be a concern for my customers.

It seems Etsy is doing everything possible to completely alienate its artisans, and this is the latest installment of nonsense. If the site didn’t bring in so many visitors for me, I’d close up that shop immediately. For now, I’ll keep it as my own website continues to grow.

Just posted this on FB. Surprised that some Etsy buyers didn’t know this had happened. Thanks for the well-written article! At least Etsy does a good job of confirming my choice to sell on ArtFire instead of Etsy!

Officially closed both stores on Etsy last month. I just cannot deal with all the changes. Online selling is hard work. The selling venue should not make it even more complicated and hard. This is why I chose Artfire. I love the grown up, professional atmosphere and the other artists are extremely helpful and nice. Everyone working together to rise the tide and lift all boats to success!

hopefully by the end of the week, I’ll have all my inventory moved over to Zibbet and Artfire (same user name both places)

I just can’t trust ETSY anymore, this is just yet another last straw all in the last month or so. (Zibbet and Artfire both have working searches, much cleaner page lay outs, nothing in my shop luring customers away…)

Now I gotta sell some stuff so I can buy new business cards… It’s gonna take me a bit to put stickers over the ETSY address with the new links on the tags I’ve already got on everything.

and here I’d been hoping my Valentines day and Easter sales would pay some medical bills. (HA! I sold ONE thing in February, and that was special ordered during a very busy January!)

Etsy, you broke my heart… I’m feeling like I’m leaving an abusive boyfriend…and wondering why I put up with him so long.

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